Mr. John C. Spooner, once a United States Senator from Wisconsin, but, happily, no longer such, feels particularly aggrieved at the Socialist proposals commonly known as the initiative, the referendum and the recall. To engraft these measures upon our federal and state constitutions would, he says, be an attempt to bring about a “pure democracy,” meaning thereby a community the members of which directly governed themselves. A “pure democracy,” according to Mr. Spooner, was never made to work on a great scale and cannot be made to work to-day. Mr. Spooner, who, in and out of office, has always served the rich, is evidently still true to his allegiance. If Mr. Spooner does not know that no Socialist, nor any other person fit to be out of an idiot asylum, has ever even suggested that the government of the United States be converted into a pure democracy, the sum of his knowledge is even less than the sum of his public services up to date. Socialists, and those who have followed us in advocating the initiative, the referendum and the recall merely want to give the people power to do certain things for themselves, provided their elected representatives refuse to do them. We do not propose to do away with representative government. We do not propose to disband a single legislative body. But we do propose to make every elected official represent us. We do not care whether he be a judge, a congressman or a President. He must represent us. But merely because we are determined these gentlemen shall represent us, other gentlemen like Mr. Spooner seek to make the people believe we are trying to go back to the old New England town meeting days and collect 90,000,0000 people on the prairie somewhere every time a law is to be passed or a fourth-class postmaster appointed. The most charitable construction that can be placed upon the attitude of Mr. Spooner and men of his kind is that they are infinitely more foolish than they believe Socialists to be. Another point of view is suggested by a Denver gentleman whose letter follows: “In one of your articles on Socialism, you tell how Socialists would govern—changes they would make in the constitution, and so forth. I should like to ask what you Socialists, or your ancestors had to do with making our present form of government? In other words, what percentage of the Socialists have three generations of American-born ancestors? Socialist leaders, in particular? A very small percentage, I venture to say. Socialism is a result of immigration. Americans still have faith in the constitution of the United States.” When all other attacks fail, the charge is gravely made that “Socialism is un-American” and, therefore, a “result of immigration.” Does it never occur to these gentlemen that the United States are also the “result of immigration”? That the English language, as we speak it here, is the result of immigration?